This is going to be a place for Malaysian new and used cars reviews and Automotive industry related stuff. Viewers contribution(s) are welcome... (See "Concept of this blog"). Active since 2006 with 850+ posts and counting.

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Monday, January 15, 2007

WORST Resale value car! (Updated 7/1/2009)

In Malaysia, typical bad resale value car have the following characteristics which are divided in 3 categories (in my book):

1) Most cars with Petrol 2.5L engine capacity and above (EXCEPT Mercedes Benz C-class and E-class). Why? EXPENSIVE Road tax, High fuel consumption fear. Also, for BIG car such as BMW 7-series, there's NO DEMAND for used ones as MOST of 7-series owners are RICH, hence few will BUY USED units.

2) LOOKS of the Car. Eg. POORLY Designed car such as Proton Juara. Few would buy a 4+2 seats (the 3rd row of seats are for KIDS as it is small, has minimal paddings and poor legroom. The car's like BRICK on wheels. Rear lights are placed VERY LOW and at the Bumper. Not practical. Engine's too small at 1.1L and underpowered... Another WIERD looking car's FIAT MULTIPLA. Another poor resale value car as it has NO Automatic gearbox and to many "WORLD's UGLIEST CAR". This is NOT my word, it's VOTED by many European and Malaysian (TORQUE MAGAZINE) Publications...

3) HUGE Discounts... How do you feel if you bought a newly launched car at RM130,000 in 2003 and the car's priced RM20,000 cheaper in 12 months time. PISSED right? Adding salt to the wounds, in 2005, the car had FURTHER Discounts of RM12,000 which makes it RM103,000. The result? Resale Value badly affected. Which car is this? KIA OPTIMA!

I've compiled 15 worst resale value cars. BUT I'll only list out the top 5 which were very CHRONIC/SEVERE/TERUK Cases. The rest of the cars were pretty close and depreciated FAST but spread out in the span of 3 to 5 years... BUT these 5 LOST A HUGE Chunk of their VALUES at the 1st year itself... Here are the lists:

As a comparison, see my previous topic: "Best resale value vehicles". The top 10 best resale value cars retained their value from 67% (Toyota Altis) to 83% (Mini Cooper) IN 3 YEARS!!! The 4 cars above RETAINED 45% to 63% of their resale value IN ONE YEAR!!! Again CHRONIC/SEVERE/"TERUK"/SAD Cases...

NOTE (17/1/07): These are "Volume sellers" (ie. "quite good selling" and easily available in the used market). There were brands like Fiats, Opels and Saabs and certain models such as Citroen C5, Alfa 166, Peugeot 607 which Resale value EQUALS or WORSE than the Kias above, but they were RARELY AVAILABLE in the used market AND if you found one, the price will be DETERMINED by buyers itself (ie. No FIXED Value). (END OF NOTE)

Now will I fear of getting sued BY NAZA KIA? NO! I'm just reporting the facts based on my calculations. The Kias BELONGS to Category #3. It's caused by HUGE DISCOUNTS by NAZA-KIA itself. I pity those 1st batch Kia Optima buyers! They had to pay RM130,000, only to found that the SAME CAR costs RM27,000(!!!) LESS within 15 months!!!